


the light ways, so frightening

by orphan_account



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Reunions, Stream of Consciousness, Unreliable Narrator, a hippo skeleton, and like eight more dads than would be reasonably necessary, feat. a very distraught adam, keith's terrible cooking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-14 21:03:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15397383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: you invite sam back in, cook him some canned soup, and grab some ice for his jaw, which he graciously accepts, plunging back into a fantastical tale about spirit-guided lion mechs and giant interstellar battles — and, in a moment of very poor judgement, very casually lets slip that your maybe-ex-fiancé is missing literally anentire armand also hasn’t mentioned you evenoncein four fucking years and,oh, by the way,your estranged pseudo-adopted sorta-son has been half-goddamn-alien thiswhole timeand no one even thought to fuckingtell you.family is the fuckingworst.





	the light ways, so frightening

**Author's Note:**

> i swore that i'd never write a voltron fic, but here i am, loving adam with all my heart,
> 
> (if you aren't used to my writing style, then good luck tbh it's kinda a nightmare)
> 
> mild warnings for grieving and swearing and that's about it  
> today's song recs: twice by feed me jack (it's a cover but also very good and where i got the title) and my dog's eyes by zammuto

i.

you tell him that you won’t be there when he returns.

that’s a lie, of course, but you don’t know that yet, and you certainly don’t know that it’s because he _won’t_ return.

you just know that you said something that you can’t take back. you know that you remind yourself of that woman sobbing in the waiting room on one of your first visits to takashi in the hospital — wiping her eyes on messy sweater sleeves, wailing something to the poor nurses about a dead husband, a car crash, and how much she hated herself for the last thing she said to him, which you gathered to be something along the lines of _i don’t love you._ luckily, what you said wasn’t _nearly_ that cold — and plus, you’ve been graced with the ability to just suck up your pride and apologize when he gets his sorry ass back planetside. the train of thought ends there.

time passes, and there’s no bitterness, no regret, and absolutely no heartache whatsoever. lying? never heard of it. compartmentalizing? sounds fake. you don’t need takashi, just like he doesn’t need you. funny how things work out so nicely sometimes. fate must have a sick sense of humour.

(you wonder if he thinks of you as much as you think of him.)

the unkempt, panicked mood you sense throughout your coworkers when you walk into work that morning hits you like a punch to the gut. what the hell is wrong with them? why are some of them typing up a storm on their computers like their lives depend on it? why are some of them not working at _all?_

you voice these concerns, to no avail. some won’t even look your way.

what the _hell_ do these bastards think they know that you don’t? they’re _supposed_ to keep you in the loop on things. you outrank half of them. and yet, not one is listening to you at all.

you tap a man on the shoulder. jeff, maybe, or jacob, or something. you’ve interacted approximately twice in your lives before this moment. you don’t even know what his job is here. you can’t bring yourself to give a damn.

you ask him what’s up with everyone, and he looks like he might just tell you before freezing like a deer in the goddamn headlights, slamming his laptop shut, shaking his head, and apologizing profusely and nonsensically in your general direction. his reaction is cookie-cutter and completely unhelpful. you’ve never been so indifferent to and yet so angry with a person in your entire life, although you’ve certainly pretended.

someone suggests that iverson was looking for you earlier, but you don’t care about earlier, you care about _now._ you care about whatever’s gotten everybody into such a fuss.

two halls down, you find more of your coworkers, some of which you might even consider to be your friends, if you’re feeling particularly generous. they’re semi-circled around an old breakroom television, some huddled near the screen, some lounging back with exasperated looks and stacks of paperwork, others biting their nails bloody and ragged, down to the bed, and refusing to look anywhere but down. the screen is unobstructed from your view. red headlines, breaking news. you frown.

_kerberos disaster. pilot error. three dead._

you feel a chill run down your spine, like droplets of cold water, of fresh blood. then, then you just feel _numb._

a door slams open behind you, but the sound is muffled and watery, and when iverson walks into the room, your eyes can’t seem to focus on his form.

_so very sorry, adam,_ he says, or something like it. _would’ve told you in person_ , he insists, crocodile sorrow in his voice, _just couldn’t seem to get to you before the press did._

you can’t remember if you’ve made any eye contact since he started talking. you aren’t certain you’ve shown any acknowledgment of hearing him at all, really, though to be fair, you aren’t even sure you’re still breathing. the woman on the television says such awful things in such a calm, rehearsed voice. you’ve always hated newscasters. now you have a reason.

_shocking tragedy. freak accident. no survivors._

something cold drips from your jaw. you taste salt. more people try to comfort you.

(and all you can think of is how much time you wasted planning apologies for a reunion that was never going to happen.)

ii.

the grief hits you harder than the shock ever could.

it’s a creeping thing, really, dread that’s gone sour, just like the milk in the back of the fridge you and he used to share, just like that empty, rancid, guilty feeling chewing at the base of your lungs every time you breathe in, the unpleasant chill on your lips when you breathe back out again.

the garrison holds a briefing in one of the larger lecture lecture halls. damn near every employee and student shows up, crowding up every free spot except for one which you strongly suspect was left specifically to keep you from having an excuse to leave. the holts are here, even, the two of them huddled against a wall while katie stares glassy-eyed and exhausted at the screen of her laptop, colleen distant and distracted and stained with tears. you don’t see keith anywhere. you quietly remind yourself to send him some of takashi’s personal effects. if he’ll even accept them — he seems adamant on chasing denial and conspiracy theories to the bitter end.

nobody blames you when you break down ugly-crying as he formally, officially lists takashi shirogane among the deceased, even though you already knew every last word iverson was gonna say to the crowd. they _should_ blame you. they don’t know about the fight. they don’t care that you weren’t good enough to make him stay. they should _hate_ you.

the garrison holds a funeral as well. closed casket. _empty_ casket. you do not attend.

three days later, you hand deliver a box stacked with takashi’s old textbooks to keith’s door. you don’t wake him. the best that you can hope is that he’ll at least use them as a doorstop or paperweight, instead of throwing them out the second he recognizes them, or worse, sending them back to you. you hate looking at them. you don’t need a reminder of your dead boyfriend every eight seconds. or, at least, you _do,_ but that’s what the ring is for.

you twirl it anxiously around your finger. it’s a half size too big for you and scuffed from where you chucked it at the wall after finding it again, sitting patiently in the back of the drawer you had stashed it in. he gave it to you for “safekeeping”. so he “wouldn’t lose it on the mission”. at the time, you thought he was lying. you thought it was just a quiet rejection, once he changed his mind and finally decided that space was more important to him than you were. now, you’re not so sure. you miss him more than you have any right to. you can’t remember if he ever really loved you. not that it matters now.

all you know for certain is how well the gold band conducts heat, so warm against your skin, and how terrified you are every time it almost slips off.

iii.

samuel holt is alive.

he shows up on your doorstep and tells you a brief summary of what appears to be a laughably long-winded story about aliens and genocide and garrison conspiracy cover-ups, most of which you actually convince yourself to believe, against your better judgment. he finally explains where keith has been for all these years, which lifts a weight off your chest, but not by much. he then very _hesitantly_ explains that takashi shirogane is very much alive.

you also punch him in the face. these two events don’t necessarily happen in this order.

you eventually work up the courage to interrupt him and ask why takashi didn’t come back with him. he is, to your displeasure, unable to provide a good enough answer. you kick him out of your home, throw up, cry, and when you open your front door again two hours later, sam’s still there, sat against the wall. you invite him back in, cook him some canned soup, and grab some ice for his jaw, which he graciously accepts, plunging back into a fantastical tale about spirit-guided lion mechs and giant interstellar battles — and, in a moment of very poor judgement, very casually lets slip that your maybe-ex-fiancé is missing literally an _entire arm_ and also hasn’t mentioned you even _once_ in four fucking years and, _oh, by the way,_ your estranged pseudo-adopted sorta-son has been half-goddamn-alien this _whole time_ and no one even thought to fucking _tell you._ and _he_ hasn’t mentioned you either. and they both still might die out in the void of space and you’d never even have a chance to protect them or say you’re sorry or tell them goodbye.

family is the fucking _worst._

iv.

“wait a second,” the lanky one in the green jacket says. “i remember you. aren’t you the dude who had an emotional breakdown when iverson ‘confirmed’ that the kerberos crew was dead? dude, you cried almost as much as pidge did.”

you make a show of ignoring him (and even resist the urge to ask what the hell a ‘pidge’ is).

you nod cordially at katie holt. “glad to see you alive and well. colleen’s been worried sick. sam, too, and _he_ hasn’t even been away from you that long.”

“slander,” jokes sam. “i have the utmost faith in my kids’ ability not to get murked.”

“save it, holt. i’m still pissed at you.”

the orange bandana guy pays no attention to your little squabble. the obviously-an-alien purple woman and the two maybe-alien british-y folks chat amongst themselves, wide smiles on their faces, and you do your best to look uninterested, though you suspect you’re failing miserably. matt, much more ragged than you remember him being, blinks in your general direction — probably not in the mood to hear your ranting right about now, as if you’d actually be cruel enough to spoil his earthly reunions with your directionless blame.

you ruffle keith’s hair, and he snarls and crosses his arms and apparently puts every _ounce_ of available effort into glaring daggers right through you. _classic keith._ “hey, bud. it’s been a while,” you offer.

“i wonder whose fault _that_ is.”

“literally yours and takashi’s. like, _literally_ only your faults, keith.”

“bullshit. you may not have left physically, but — i thought you told shiro you wouldn’t —”

you cut him off with a hug. he’s tall as fuck now. same stupid haircut and resentful teenage demeanor, though. it takes him a long moment to hug you back. when you pull apart, your wallet is missing from your jacket pocket. the little bastard.

keith smirks and hands it back to you. “how have you gotten even _worse_ at this, man? i didn’t even know that was possible.”

you sigh and hold out your hand. he rolls his eyes and returns the twenties he swiped. not like they’ll be any use to him, really. upon sticking your palm out once more, he returns your car keys with a huff and a slight smile.

he jabs his thumb over to the purple woman. “that’s my birth mom, by the way. i’ll introduce you later.”

“your fucking _what now?_ ”

“good news: now i only have _one_ dead parent out of four. that’s, like, a b-minus, right? not sure if me dramatically declaring that you were dead to me almost four years ago counts as a second —”

_“not funny,_ keith. also, since when do you openly consider me a father figure? you’ve changed more than you let on.”

keith grins and shakes his head. “hey, what happened to the whole _if-you-leave-so-will-i_ deal? i thought you and he…” he trails off with a frown. “he hasn’t really… talked about you. in a while. i just assumed — y’know.”

green jacket boy raises his brows and stands in a way you _guess_ is supposed to look threatening, though it mostly just looks petty and offended and utterly confused. you already don’t like this kid. he seems self-assured, though, at the very least. and slightly familiar, now that you think about it. so does bandana kid, who elbows katie, clearly looking for some sort of answer.

“you know this dude, keith?” bandana kid asks.

“adam? yeah, hunk, he was shiro’s — oh, _shit. shiro._ hey, shiro! i swear to god, if you don’t get your ass over here _right now_ —”

_“language,_ keith,” you chide, before you realize that there’s another voice saying the exact same thing at the exact same time as you.

“adam,” takashi says, and you recognize that tone. that’s shock. it  sounds so wrong on his voice.

his hair looks like shit.

“your hair looks like shit,” you say before you can stop yourself. “also, where the fuck is your arm? sam told me you had an advanced prosthetic.”

“keith chopped it off with a sword.”

“keith chopped — _keith, what the fuck?”_ you growl.

“he was trying to kill me!” keith defends.

“how could _i_ have tried to kill you? i was fucking dead,” takashi says jokingly, like it’s a casual reminder, not a fucking hellish apocalyptic nightmare scenario.

“you were _what.”_

takashi grimaces. “uh. adam. about the whole — err, _body,_ and all.” he rubs awkwardly at the back of his neck.

“you. were. _what?”_

“there was a clone, and…”

“nope, i change my mind, i don’t want to know, i don’t — this is _exactly_ why i didn’t want you to — i can’t believe you dragged keith into all this goddamn — fuck you,” you say, and lunge against him, letting your arms wrap around his chest, sobbing into his shoulder. “i can’t fucking stand you sometimes.”

“hey, shiro? who’s your friend?” asks bandana boy cautiously. (you see katie very desperately attempt to shush him in the background. she and matt still aren’t your number one fans, you suppose.)

“everyone, this is adam,” takashi says, without pulling away from your grip. “adam, this is everyone.”

“cool, great, thanks for the intro, shiro, but _who_ is he exactly?” lance asks.

“none of your business,” keith snaps, and lance blanches.

“it’s okay, keith,” takashi insists, and you finally take a step back and get a good look at him. there’s a broad scar across his nose. his hair is plasticine-white. he looks so… _tired._ “allura, lance, coran, hunk. pidge, if you don’t remember, though i doubt that. you two seem chummy. adam is — no, _was_ my fiancé. we _do_ need to talk about that, i think.”

the young alien woman smiles with diplomatic precision. “how interesting. what is a ‘finances’?”

“actually, i think he said ‘fish fillet’, a delectable earth delicacy!” corrects the orange-haired man.

the kid in the bandana plunges into a very brief and simplified explanation of the human tradition of engagement and marriage, completely unphased. this guy is great. you remind yourself to properly introduce yourself later.

lance just stares starry-eyed between you and takashi. “you mean… shiro is… ”

“engaged!” the young woman exclaims happily, clapping her hands together. “what a fascinating-sounding ceremony. coran and i really must prepare a traditional altean meal — when will it be?”

“i’m not sure it’s — still on, exactly.” takashi says with a shrug. “he sort of… dumped me? kinda?”

“i did _not.”_ you pause. “alright, i might have? a bit? technically?”

“i mean, we never really talked about it, after the argument, but —”

“— it wasn’t an argument, it was just me being _right,_ which you have just spent the past four years _proving_ —”

“— i’m pretty sure he didn’t like me all that much when everything fell apart and i, y’know, took off —”

“— i loved you more than anything, you _ass. and_ i wasn’t the one who gave back a fucking _engagement ring_ —”

“shiro did _what_ now? i thought he lost it when his arm got cut off the first time,” keith interjects, glancing at the space where takashi’s arm is supposed to be.

“i gave it back specifically so i _wouldn’t_ lose it,” takashi explains quietly.

“which you wouldn’t have had to even _worry_ about if you had just _listened_ to me and not gotten your fucking arm chopped off in outer space,” you plead.

“another time, adam,” shiro insists, resting his hand gently on your shoulder. it’s a comforting weight which you’ll never admit out loud how much you missed.

“look, i don’t know if — if we’re ‘okay’, or together, or enemies, or _whatever,_ and i don’t need to know, not right now. i just — would you — wear the ring? at least until we sit down and properly talk about things. you look so weird without it on. i don’t like it.” you slide it from your finger and hold it tight in your fist, leaving a faint crescent mark in your palm. your left hand feels abnormally light in its absence. “plus, gold suits you,” you add as an afterthought.

“pretty sure i look weird for reasons completely unrelated to the ring,” he teases, before looking solemn for a second. “but, sure. i’ll wear it. i’m so sorry, adam.”

“me, too,” you mumble under your breath, but you know he hears it. you slip the ring onto his finger, smiling fondly at the achingly familiar sight.

“does this mean he’s un-engaged or twice as engaged?” the orange-haired man whispers to keith.

“wish i knew,” keith says with a grin. “hey, i — i missed you, man. sorry for not, like, speaking to you for a while. to be fair, i was still pretty mad about the two of you not telling me about kerberos. and that was before things even got _really_ bad.”

“missed you too, kiddo. sorry for thinking you were emotionally maladaptive for believing takashi was alive. well, i mean, sorry for… everything, really. hey — you, your birth mother, and i should grab dinner sometime. i’d love to hear more about her. and you and i have some _serious_ catching up to do. i heard you have a pet wolf now? the fuck is up with that, bud?”

“i named it _adam 2: electric boogaloo_.”

“wait, really?”

_“obviously fucking not._ christ, adam. _”_

“no swearing, keith. only cool kids are allowed to swear.”

“i take it back, you’re not my fake dad anymore,” he jokes. “for that dinner, though, i can cook us something, if you’d like.”

“keith, you’re family, and i appreciate you deeply, but please understand that you can’t cook for _shit._ cold canned green beans eaten using pencils as chopsticks is not a meal.”

“whatever, old man. we can’t exactly go out to a restaurant with a cat-eared purple alien.”

“i _heard_ that,” the woman calls from across the room.

“we can just wait ‘til comic con, pretend she’s a cosplayer,” you suggest.

he laughs, a rare sound. “i hate that that would actually work.”

“hey, afterwards, we could swing by that one museum. you used to love that place, right? you’d always sit by the hippo skeleton and text pictures of it to shiro even though he was only a room over.”

he scoffs. “you mean the natural history museum? the one that you two emotionally constipated idiots were gonna have your wedding at?”

“i… was not aware that you knew about those plans,” shiro says.

“i. was. _literally._ your. wedding planner,” keith snaps. “you let me do that instead of getting a part time job.”

“how did i forget that? didn’t you want to make the bouquets all black? man, you were _emo._ ”

“i was, like, fourteen!”

you glance back over at takashi and suddenly realize how stupid you must look with tears all over your lenses. you take them off, wipe them on your jacket, and just barely make out the scrunch-nosed smile on his face upon seeing you squinting at him without your glasses on. you stand in awkward, almost pleasant silence for a while, the remainder of his team slowly going back to their own personal conversations.

this is a nice little family you’ve found, here. maybe he doesn’t love you _now,_ but this is the first moment that you don’t doubt that he loved you _once,_ that he didn’t just lie to comfort you when you first fell in love with him.

“wanna help me design him a new prosthetic arm?” sam offers you.

“wait, we’re doing that today?” takashi asks.

“well, i mean, we’re getting _started_ on it today. earth tech is pretty damn cool, but not perfectly-articulating lazer hand cool, and i am essentially whatever the opposite of a biomedical engineer is. katie said she’d help program it when it’s done and hunk’s already working on a design for the adapter, though, so it shouldn’t take long at all to put together something pretty neat.”

you frown. “alright, but how exactly would i be useful in this process?”

“i want to make it visually interesting. weren’t you an art major?” sam asks.

“takashi, you monster, that was a _secret,”_ you whine.

“you can’t blame me for having wanted to talk about you constantly when we were together. i was just really proud of you!” he pouts, crossing his arms and leaning against a wall.

(you finally see where keith gets it from.)

\---

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much!!!! comments and kudos mean the world <3


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